


a dream (a nightmare)

by Larrant



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: BEFORE I NEEDED TO TYPE IT???, Drabble, IS THERE A GALEN/ORSON FIC HERE ALREADY OMD IM SO HAPPY, M/M, introspect, ish, short drabble tbh more like, so i just typed in the galen erso/orson krennic tag AND IT POPPED UP??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 05:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8359612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larrant/pseuds/Larrant
Summary: There is a dark haired boy who sits two seats ahead from him on the shuttle, an easy laugh on his lips as he talks with the others on their way to the Academy. 
Orson has never gotten over Galen Erso.





	

 

 

 

There is a dark haired boy who sits two seats ahead from him on the shuttle, an easy laugh on his lips as he talks with the others on their way to the Academy. Someone who seems at ease in this unfamiliar setting, whose charisma already seems apparent from how a circle has already formed around him. Orson watches him to make the time pass, wonders if the dark haired boy will be someone worth cultivating a friendship with when they arrive. First impressions aren’t always misleading, after all.

It turns out Orson _does_ end up becoming friends with the dark haired boy from the shuttle- it’s not unexpected, not after he learns the boy’s name is Galen Erso, a scion from a branch family of the Erso clan. It’s even less unexpected after he learns Galen Erso is one of the brightest in their class, rumoured already to be a once-in-a-lifetime genius.

He is also, coincidentally, the only person Orson finds on his level.

When their first test results come back, they’re both at the top of the class. It’s a good thing they excel at different subjects, otherwise Orson doesn’t think he’d have taken quite so easily to the other boy.

They bond over nights they stay reading by moonlight in the library, sneaking out at night to visit the sprawling city beneath them- Galen takes Orson on trips through the nightclubs and bars of Coruscant, teaches him how to down a shot of Astrolite without choking it back up.

Sharp cheekbones and dark eyes, a low voice that tinges itself with warmth, and at some point Orson falls for him, his best friend.

Galen is like the sun, bright and warm- everyone likes him, and Orson no less captivated by his best friend than the teachers who adore him and the students who want to get close to him. He is brilliant, he is destined for something _great_.

A kiss, he ventures in their second year, with an easy laugh and a grin that could shake this all off as a joke if he wanted to, and Galen looks at him with something in his eyes that cannot quite be hidden by the dark around them. It makes Orson’s heart stutter, makes his palms sweaty with some unknown anxiety, and he almost doesn’t know what to expect when Galen takes him by the shoulder lapels and pulls him in.

 _More_ , he suggests when they break apart, wide-eyed and out of breath and his heart pumping full to burst, and with a laugh, Galen readily complies.

Nothing changes between them, not really, nothing except the pink that sometimes tints Orson’s ears pink when they touch, nothing except how Galen flushes whenever a pretty girl asks him if he’s already dating anyone, how his eyes pull to Orson for a moment before dragging away. The next year’s Festival of Love, Orson plucks a bouquet of wildflowers and gives it to Galen at night. He never forgets the smile Galen gives him.

 

\---

 

Here’s the catch, they grow up.

 

\---

 

They grow up- four years passes too quickly and maybe times of happiness are always short, and when they graduate Galen already has an offer from the most prestigious company in the core worlds. Orson finds an internship and a position as the assistant of a major politician. Except- it is on Naboo, and Galen’s company is exclusively based in Coruscant.

Maybe they are lovers and friends, but more than that they are rivals, and Galen is the one who challenges Orson to go, who tells him- ‘I am going to fulfil my ambitions, aren’t you going to do the same?’.

So Orson grins, and when he leaves feels as if he leaves a little bit of himself behind with Galen. He looks back, just once after he’s turned the corner and he won’t see Galen any more.

They still meet perhaps once every few months, but their meetings grow less and less until finally it’s been a year and Orson realizes he has only heard from Galen at party events, only kept up with him through the news and gossip surrounding the rising scientist.

He’s not quite out of love yet, not even then, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget Galen Erso with his dark eyes and dark hair- but he _does_ know that his old rival is making waves, and Orson won’t be left behind.

So Orson spins his words like a web, he drags himself up the pyramid with every new event and meeting- and soon enough he is a friend of the Chancellor himself, has learned to listen carefully and understands when he is given an offer to change the galaxy.

By the time the Death Star project rolls around, he has almost forgotten Galen Erso, only has an idea of the dark of his eyes and the bright of his smile. And besides, Orson is married now, to some senator’s daughter from Corellia, almost half his age and a delicate kind of pretty. While there is nothing of attraction between them, he is fond of his wife in his own way, and they both overlook each other’s activities outside their marriage.

Galen Erso has become a thing of his past, something to reminisce over at night when the moon is round in the sky and there is a glass of wine in his hand. They have both come far, he knows from when he checks the name on the interweb, when he reads news about the famous scientist who has broken so many walls in his research into energy. He clicks off his research and wonders if Galen does the same for him, wonders if he sometimes thinks about Orson as well, and already knows without having to think that Galen does.

The seasons pass, the Chancellor takes in a Jedi protege, a boy with angry eyes and dark hair, and Orson makes his introductions with a smile that hides his derision.

It’s when they start stepping into problems with the Death Star Project that Orson starts thinking of Galen Erso again. Galen Erso, a leading scientist in energy research. A stray thought, and then something that he dismisses out of hand. Galen would hardly agree to using his research to further the project, not if his morals were anything like what Orson had once known. Orson had always been the realistic thinker amongst the pair.

But that same line of thinking doesn’t go for his colleagues, because it’s only a few months after that when he learns Galen Erso and his family have been kidnapped by Separatists- a fact spoken at a meeting by a thin man with a sharp nose and graying hair, a sneer on his lips as he looks at Orson- and Orson is faced with a different kind of dilemma altogether.

 

\---

 

The decision is easier to make than he would have thought.

When Galen Erso and his family are ‘rescued’ by his troopers, it’s the first time he sees his old friend again in more than a decade. There is sweat on his palms underneath his gloves, there’s something twisting in his chest that isn’t quite anxiety.

Galen is older now, he _looks_ old, _worn_ , as if the years have taken their toll on him. But when he sees Orson his eyes light up, a smile comes to his lips- it makes Orson feel vaguely ill, the smile Galen gives him. There’s a sick sensation twisting inside him, a sensation similar to the feeling he’d gotten after shooting his first person dead. The thought of that sticks.

He shakes it off, and greets his old friend.

The man has a wife now, and a child- a young, chubby-cheeked girl called Jyn. She eyes him from behind her mother, mistrustful and uncertain, before eventually she barrels forwards and lifts up a tiny hand for him to shake. He’s never liked children, but maybe he’ll make an exception here.

Galen’s wife is a slim woman with golden skin and green eyes, she smiles as she takes his hand, as she introduces herself. Lyra Erso.

Plain, that’s all Orson can think when he presses his lips to the back of her hand. Pretty, certainly, but there is nothing special about this woman, nothing he can see in her green eyes that would have drawn Galen in, that should have fascinated him. Galen never seemed like the type to marry for convenience- that can’t be it. But when Galen looks at her- his eyes crinkle and he smiles so fondly, as if she is his world and he has never wanted for anything more. He straightens, and compliments her on finding a husband like Galen, only a hint of joking irony in his words.

Later, he notices that he cannot see the blinding brilliance in Galen any more. He notices it suddenly, when Galen turns to his wife with a chuckle on his lips and something trivial on his lips- he cannot see that single minded ambition that he remembers so much from their youth. Only this. Only contentment, only softness. For some reason he feels almost betrayed by that, even if he has no reason to be.

Orson realizes that a small part of him hates Lyra.

 

\---

 

He realizes this too, later when there is a glass of wine in his hands and he’s staring up to the full moon; he has never been quite over Galen Erso.

 

\---

 

The darkness is cold, a suffocating sensation on the side of his throat. Maybe it’s the stiff collar, but something seems to be pressing into his flesh, suffocating him gently. But over time, it’s become almost too easy to ignore.

“You killed her,” Galen says, and his voice is rough with grief, with helplessness. He does not understand, Orson can hear it in his voice. Even now, Galen _refuses_ to understand, to acknowledge what they have become, and that is his weakness.

But Orson will not give him his answers. He steps forwards, slow and measured, until he is in front of Galen, until he could reach out a hand and brush his fingers across skin and warm flesh if he wanted to.

It’s funny, he remembers Galen being taller than this, he remembers having to look up to stare the older man in the eyes. Now perhaps it is the lighting, the tall boots he wears, but Galen seems _small_ , his broad shoulders terribly fragile, his eyes hooded, a shadow of himself. He looks like he could shatter with a touch.

Orson wants, suddenly, to step closer- the need comes over him suddenly, and he almost cannot breathe with the want to give Galen something, anything. A touch of reassurance, a word of comfort, _anything_ to not see Galen like this.

He does not.

It’s some strange, empty part of him that smiles, that takes over for him and acts on the darkest part of himself.

He chooses his words with precision. He needs them to cut, needs them to strike _right_. A simple phrase. Gentle. “You still have your daughter, don’t you?”

He watches then, the silence deafening- he sees the exact point in time when Galen understands, watches the widening of his eyes, the breath that leaves the man as if he has been punched in the stomach, and then how he seems to slump, the life leaving him. The sight of it is less pleasing than Orson thought it would be, but he’s already too far gone to feel any regret, to acknowledge the cold curdling in his stomach.

“I’ll have you fulfill my ambitions,” Orson whispers, and is only mesmerized by the glitter of despair in Galen’s eyes.

 

\---

 

It’s coincidence that leaves the two alone together, that leaves Orson in Galen’s quarters at night, coincidence, and yet Orson knows exactly why he’s there.

And isn’t it natural that it would lead to this.

It feels like he’s tainting Galen like this, even touching him, dragging the tip of his finger across Galen’s lips, pushing his thumb into his mouth. Galen doesn’t even resist, glassy-eyed as he stares at Orson, at somewhere far, far beyond him.

Here is a man who has lost everything, a man who has had everything unecessary stripped away from him- here is the man Orson has made, the man Orson has broken.

Orson wonders, suddenly, if this is what he had wished for all along.

There’s been something keeping him from this all along, keeping him from tainting the final memories he had of _them_. But now he wonders about that, so deep in his sin that he can barely breathe- what matters if he takes this as well, this final thing that would damn him. What matters if he defiles Galen with this too.

Orson Krennic has always been greedy.

So he smiles bitterly, crooked and faint, and closes the space between them.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So my headcanon is actually that Galen took on his wife’s name, Erso, but idk what Galen’s name used to be so I’m gonna stick as close to the canon as possible. :')
> 
> I live for comments to be honest, even though I'm on anon /o\\.


End file.
